Ichthyology

The Department of Ichthyology represents one of four research departments within the Museum's Division of Vertebrate Zoology. The Department maintains one of the world’s largest and most rapidly growing ichthyological collections.

The American Museum of Natural History's ichthyological collection comprises approximately 2,000,000 specimens, 200,000 lots, 35,000 skeletons, 2,500 tissues samples, and 500 types. The scope of the collections is worldwide with special strengths in African, Australian, Central American, Chinese, and Malagasy freshwater fishes as well as Malagasy, Bahamian and Gulf of Mexico nearshore fishes.

The curators, postdoctoral fellows, students, staff, and associates of the Department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History work to discover, document, and explain the diversity of the world's fishes.

The curators, post-docs, students, staff, and associates of the Department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History work to discover, document, and explain the diversity of the world's fishes. The majority of the published work done by this group of scientists focuses on systematic ichthyology: the reconstruction of the evolutionary histories of fishes, revisionary studies, species descriptions, and anatomical studies.